There are also rumors that Deltec has been hacked, which is the bank Tether supposedly uses to "back" the Tether stablecoin. Supposedly there is one dollar for each tether, but its looking more and more like that is not the case.

https://www.coindesk.com/nyag-tether-bitfinex-loan-documents...

https://twitter.com/deltecleaks

I have not fact checked the leaks.

EDIT: https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2021/attorney-general-james-...

NYAG taking action against Bitfinex/Tether!

"Contrary to online speculation, there was no finding that Tether ever issued tethers [USDT] without backing, or to manipulate crypto prices," said Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor.[1]

[1]https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/95207/bitfinex-tether-ne...

3. The next day, November 2, 2018, Tether made the first of five transfers ultimately totaling $475 million from its bank account at Deltec Bank to Bitfinex’s account at Deltec Bank. At the same time, a corresponding transfer was made from Bitfinex’s account at Crypto Capital to Tether’s account at Crypto Capital via ledger entry Bitfinex also “purchased” 150 million tethers by transferring $150 million in funds held at Bitfinex’s Crypto Capital account to Tether’s account at Crypto Capital. These transfers were not disclosed.

44. And so, as of November 2, 2018, tethers were again no longer backed 1-to-1 by U.S. dollars in a Tether bank account, because a substantial portion of the backing in the Deltec account had been transferred to Bitfinex to make up for the funds taken by Crypto Capital, while the corresponding funds transferred from Bitfinex’s Crypto Capital account to Tether’s Crypto Capital account were impaired by Crypto Capital’s actions.

45. Tether’s misrepresentation would continue until late February 2019, at which time Tether updated its website to note that “[e]very tether is always 100% backed by our reserves, which include traditional currency and cash equivalents and, from time to time, may include other assets and receivables from loans made by Tether to third parties, which may include affiliated entities (collectively, ‘reserves’).” Tether did not announce that it had changed its disclosure, and indeed there were no media reports about the change until several weeks later on March 14, 2019

Read the settlement...

https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/2021.02.17_-_settlemen...

I am not up to speed on this, but I’ve long considered Tether to be extremely harmful to the cryptocurrency community as a whole and to Bitcoin in particular.

As a result I’ve not purchased additional cryptocurrency in several years. The first bull run after the inevitable correction when the situation with Tether is resolved is my personal signal to buy.

It looks like they settled for $18.5 million and Bitfinex has to stop activity in NY.

In modern bitcoin, what is the role of an exchange? Do most people hold their own wallet? If you have an offline wallet, what's the work involved with using that cold key to perform a transaction?

And for an organization like Tesla, do they now have 2 FTE to manage their holdings or do they just have 3000 wallets with different amounts of BTC some of which are online and some of which are offline?

This all seems like an enormous PITA to actually use for 99.9% of human sized transactions; an exchange seems like a reasonable mitigation against that, but now you're 100% at the mercy of something that's as trustworthy as an 1830's bank.

Probably using something like https://www.bitgo.com/services/custody/qualified-custody

Doesn't that have all the same failure modes as a bank?

Audits sometimes don't uncover faults; insurers sometimes don't make good on their obligations, regulatory agencies sometimes freeze funds, etc.

Breaking News: Highly volatile asset experiences volatility

So it dropped the whole way down to what it was priced at two weeks ago.

Unless Telsa is the last company to add BTC to their holding, I suspect this is temporary.

Not enough. Need to see it go down 20-30% more. The BTC pump craze needs to die down so my diamond hands can buy it from the weak hands.

Many stocks dropped 5 - 10% too.

What goes up must come down.

(Word is some "whale" [big holder] got the correction going by selling off some 150M+ at 58K, cashing out ...

I do not think valuations are in doubt - as much as they've ever been, at least ...)

Whiile I understand the downvotes, to clarify:

- None is saying this movement caused the drop. I'd be stupid to do so. Contributing factor ...

- This is clear: The number of "whale" wallets vs. smaller wallets has done nothing but increase.-

- Influx to exchanges have been outsized and abnormal large these past few days ...

... so, it would stand to reason that the market is more and more controlled and at the mercy of bigger players. Some speak of a massive "transfer of wealth" ...

BTC was growing way to fast over last week, large sales into buying dip is something that happen all the time.

Price will be back to the rough linear growth in 5days.

I think so too.

(However, the largest single day drop in BTC history must be pointing at something, and that cannot be ignored ...)

it is not largest, not even close.

Oh, I stand misinformed then, with apologies.

Am curious ...

(No the largest "single day drop", then ...)